I read all the time about financial people advising to set your life up to be eligible for as many tax deductions as possible. They give you all of the numbers and show you how much money you can save throughout the year if you have a mortgage, student loan debt, and various other things that create a tax deduction. However, the financial world has gone one step further to encourage consumers to keep their debts that are tax deductible for as long as they can to milk the deductions. This is completely absurd, and again, anything you say to me will not change my mind about it. NEVER CREATE A TAX DEDUCTION JUST FOR THE SAKE OF HAVING A DEDUCTION.

Is it possible to own a home right out of college? Well, it depends on your situation. It is true that a single young person will have a much harder time owning a home than a young couple with two incomes, but do not be discouraged by that. Homeownership is the American dream, and I think that everyone should be working towards owning a piece of property, or mayb even two, three, or ten pieces of property. The fact is that real estate is a great investment, even in the post real estate boom era. Real estate very rarely goes down in value, and it gives you more control over your investment by being able to build an extra bathroom that may cost you $6,000, but it will increase the homes value by $15,000.

I am fairl active in my local church, and I did an internship at one point as a youth pastor for a church one summer. One thing that I know is that it is very hard for young pastors, music ministers, and church administrators to locate open jobs in churches. Most of this has to do with the fact that many churches hire internally within their congregation and pastors are found heavily on a referral basis.

I knew that Parker Brothers was hurting when they kept coming out with every gosh darn version of Monopoly that they could think of. But this information is very troubling to me. No matter what version of monopoly you are playing, whether it is knitting-opoly or gator-opoly or whatever, you are using cash to buy things in the game. Now, monopoly will be coming out with a “high tech” version of the most popular board game ever with a swiping credit card and a credit card machine that deducts money from your account. And you may think, “Oh, well they are just keeping up with the times”, but this is not the case. Visa credit card is sponsoring the charge machine and giving Parker Brothers a huge chunk of cash to be its sponsor. This troubles me on two levels.

Let me start off by saying that I think that you should ALWAYS pay cash for a vacation. It is silly to finance a luxury. You may feel like you deserve a vacation, but they are still a luxury expense. That being said, I am a huge proponent of living it up when you go on vacation. Vacation is a time of releasing stress, thinking about nothing, and rejuvenating your mind and body. If you try to go cheap on your vacation, it will not feel like much of a vacation.

As a twenty-something, I have really never paid attention to long-term disability insurance. Because I am in the prime years of my life, I have this feeling of invincibility like nothing could happen to me. I feel great and I work at a desk job. But lately I started thinking about how one tragic event could change my life forever, and it made me realize that this insurance product is for everyone.

I was listening to a radio show the other night where a guy was describing that he went out and bought three properties with zero money down. Now, he has had some deadbeat renters and he is 3 months behind on the mortgage payments. He is having a hard time selling the properties and is close to foreclosure on the properties. It had him very scared and confused about what to do next. My assumption is that this guy listened to some get-rich-quick scam artist and now he is getting burned.

This blog article from USA Today talks about a poll that shows that young people in their twenties are most likely to opt for a Roth 401(k) when their employers offer it as a retirement benefit.

About 14% of the twenty to thirty year old demographic opted to invest their money into a Roth 401(k). A Roth 401(k) combines the characteristics of a Roth IRA and a traditional 401(k). Basically, the money from your paycheck goes into the Roth 401(k) AFTER taxes are taken out, whereas the money goes into the account BEFORE taxes in a traditional 401(k).

My generation has fallen into a huge trap when it comes to our philosophy about higher learning. We have created a society of young people whom think that having a college degree will automatically make them successful in the marketplace. Young people will spend anything and everything to get a so-called “prestigious” degree, and most young people look to Uncle Sam to help them fit the bill. The end product is a young and broke twenty-something whom is working at a decent job making $30,000 a year with $25 – 50 grand in student loans.

It put a smile on my face to see that Warren Buffet was going to be giving away a big chunk of his wealth. He is giving away about $37 billion dollars, which is about 85% of his wealth. Although, I know there are some cynics out there, and that is why I chose to write about this current event. First let’s break down one of the largest philantropic events ever.

I started my first real job about a year ago, and now I am reflecting upon my first year’s experience in the “working” world. I have adjusted nicely, and I like the people that I work with, however, it was quite intimidating to be “the new guy”. I thought that I would share four things that helped me earn some credibility with my boss and co-workers.

I called my dad today and wished him a happy father’s day, and it got me thinking about how much our parents influence our lives. We usually think about the morals and principles that our parents teach us. Parents teach us the difference between right and wrong, and they usually try to instill their own political, social, and behavioral ideologies into us at an early age. Parents want us to be like them, unless your parents are into bad stuff, then they want you to be exactly the opposite of them.

Christmas is six months away. Most of us are thinking about the beach, vacations, and hot weather at this point in the game. Christmas is often overlooked as a big expense, but it usually hits our bank accounts hard. In 2005, Americans spent an average of $900 per household on Christmas gifts. If you start putting away $150 a month until the holiday season, you’ll have $900 to spend on your loved ones for the holidays.

Even though gas prices and airline tickets are at record highs this summer, people will still do a great deal of traveling this summer. Some of you will stay in the United States, some will go to exotic islands, cruises, and some will venture to other continents. Traveling is a big expense and vacations are something that you do not want to short change yourself on. Let’s face it, we all need some good rest and relaxation!

I actually do not own any “property” so to speak, but I closed on a small condominium yesterday. This was my first closing, and I was so stressed out that I was 20 minutes late trying to find the attorney’s office.

The whole process was fairly new to me. I know a good deal about how the process works with mortgages, taxes, insurance, and all of that good stuff, but it is always a different feeling when they hand over the keys to you and now you actually own something of great value.

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